closed eyes, hidden heart
by penchou
Summary: if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like you've been here before?


_Till this day, my heart still mourns for Nanami Chiaki._

* * *

He opens his eyes to see a water fountain. He doesn't know how he ended up here but Izuru guesses he must be dreaming.

All his moves are with a reason and purpose, and being here in what looks like to be a school's water fountain with all the maintained shrubs and trimmed flowers makes him look distraught with the lack of objective but he isn't obviously, he's Kamukura Izuru.

The suited man decides to take a seat on one of the benches surrounding the still flowing water fountain. It's getting dark by how the orange glow of the sun illuminates him on his side. He notes that the silence is oddly comforting, though, and he does not know why.

Too quiet if you ask him and so he then finds it boring. Ahh... As if something can make him that interested. Everything is boring and, admittedly, so does he-well except for the other him but he's gone now.

He crosses his legs and props a hand on it. It this is a dream, he could wake up anytime soon but why isn't he gone from this illusion? He closes his eyes, thinking that if he ever goes to sleep in this confusing dream world of his, he'll wake up back to reality. Unfortunately, it never goes the way he planned it to be.

"Hinata?"

A voice rips out the empty silence between hin and he is quick to reveal his bloody red irises. Only for them to slightly tremble at the sight of light pink hair and confused pink eyes.

He does not think, and he wonders if this is some kind of cruel joke because he sees her form her next words before blaring noises of explosions nearby shook him awake.

.

.

.

It's been four days since he last slept. Not that sleeping is useful to him, he can last months without it anyway. So why not use the time to spread despair like how Enoshima wants him to do?

Speaking of Enoshima, it has been months. Months have passed and he only heard a few days after her so-called HighSchool life of Mutual Killing that few survivors made it without her being one of them. Which is unfortunate if he thinks about it. He was expecting more but, oh well, surprises sure are hard to come his way.

So he focuses back on the screaming pair before him. Two adult civilians shook in fear, watching Izuru rip out the guts of what used to be their beloved child. Innards spilling onto the ground and blood squirting everywhere, even staining his suit and the faces of the parents whose expressions are one of dread. He blankly takes in the sight of their horror and blatantly mutters.

"Boring... You common people are so boring..."

Izuru slowly walks towards the frightened duo after he throws away the remains of their child and proceeds to choke them to death on each hand.

He grips on their throat harder and stronger, they both reach out to his hand but there's no use. Their faces are turning blue as air is taken out of them and both adults start gurgling.

The suited man continues to strangle them, narrowing his red eyes at the grueling and unfortunately uninteresting sight. So boring, why are they so fucking boring?!

Izuru can almost hear their windpipes getting crushed into bits ever so slowly. The constant humming of their throats continue on as they both struggle to fend off him. Obviously, they can't and tears keep rolling down from their eyes but Izuru is almost content when he's about kill them before a vision of a pixelated pin replaces his victims and a faint silhouette coated in crimson behind his raised fist.

 _He does not realize the tears when he pulls up a hand to his face. There, Izuru finds himself confused at the situation and even if he wished he could stop the flow of tears, he couldn't_

In that instant, he feels like his own throat had gone dry and the rare presence of bile finds its way up his throat and he gulps it back down, forcefully. No, this is not supposed to happen, he thinks to himself through gritting teeth.

"Shit." He swears, finally deciding to just cast away their already dying bodies.

Izuru watches their bodies hit the ground with a sickening thud as sounds of bones break under their weight and that's when he knows they've passed on.

He looks back at his blood-stained hands and he settles on sleeping for that night. Hopefully, what he just saw will stop when he goes back to sleep, though a loud voice is yelling at the back of his mind reminding him of a sentimental piece's presence in his pocket and for some reason he can feel it grow heavier as each second passes.

.

.

.

He sees her sitting down on the same bench surrounding the water fountain. She's holding onto her game console and is obviously playing some game he might take as uninteresting. Not that he would want to know what it is, this is no time for idle chat.

Izuru's just here to solve his problem. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, he slowly approaches the bench when she takes the time to look up from the screen and takes his presence into account.

"Hinata?"

He resists the urge to flinch at the name because how? How could she know by just looking at him? The question gnaws at him and he almost wants to squeeze her, hit her - cause why? why and how does she make him feel like this - but he remains passive.

His lack of reply makes her attend back to the screen and he pays no mind. Better not to look at him when he feels so at lost inside. Izuru does not waver though and he finally takes a seat beside her but manages a few inches away from her because her presence stings.

How funny, now that he thinks of it, cause she's supposed to be dead - and stay dead - and yet here he is possibly fighting the reality of being haunted by her presumably ghost.

"Don't you have something to say?" She blurts out, face still looking at the screen. He hears the constant background noises and sound effects from the console and a short beep indicates that she lost the game.

The pink haired girl sighs at the silence he is giving her and places the console beside her, positioning herself to her side, she watches Izuru's blank gaze.

"Well?"

"I have nothing to say." He finally replies.

"..."

"And I'm not Hinata."

Silence fell upon them and he can feel her lean back on the bench for support, calmly waiting for something to happen, their line of sight at the garden right in front of them.

Honestly, the former Ultimate Hope doesn't know what made him lie, he is not one to hide the truth, so, why? Surely it had something to do with the constant and aching part in his chest and now does he realize the implication. The other him is resisting.

So, for the sake of not feeling any pain because he should be the one in control, he asks in that monotonous voice of his.

"Do you regret it?"

"Hmm?"

"For going back to help your teacher, did you regret it?" He clarifies, face forward with no will to look at her.

Maybe because he's bored into thinking that she might give him a boring answer or maybe it's the thought that she is just a conjured image of the real deal that is only toying with his brain and that he didn't really know her but he's caught off guard when she answers.

"I don't know."

She murmurs the last syllable, slurring it to give some space for reflection because honestly she does not know if she regrets it.

"What?" Izuru is left stunned, unable to comprehend what she said. She doesn't know if she regrets it? Now, he's left confused.

Izuru turns to face The girl but before he could see her expression, bright light blinds him and he wakes up.

.

.

.

It's the third time he finds himself in the same place. In the same bench in the same water fountain located in the same garden and in the same school that started it all.

Of course, Izuru would have known that small detail from the start.

He's still not quite as sure why he keeps finding the girl in the same bench as his. Suppose this is her spot and not his? No matter. He'll find it soon enough.

They're sitting side by side, as always. This has been a position the black haired man noticed would be the case. He beside her, and she beside him. His whole body practically moved on its own accord as if it had been doing it ever since.

Izuru wonders if it has something to do with the hairpin in his pocket.

So, he surprises her with a question, stopping her in her track of concentration leading her playing character to get hit and die. The words 'game over' displayed on the screen.

"Excuse me," she says, turning her body to face him and cocks her head to the side as if she was hallucinating. "Can you repeat that?"

The man wastes no time and obliges dutifully, "This Hinata person, who is he to you?"

"Hmm…" she brings up a hand to her chin and poses a thinking posture, her eyes not exactly looking at him, her thoughts probably somewhere far away.

She stays like that for a moment, pondering on how to answer him and Izuru watches until she leans back on the back of the bench and draws out a sigh.

"My best friend." She starts, rather wistfully based on the tone of her voice and he can almost feel the sadness behind the statement. "Hinata's my best friend."

"Do you miss him?" he asks, although he knows the answer already he can't help but feel the need to ask her.

At that, she stares straight at him and Izuru feels like she is staring right _through_ him. Boring holes with her gaze as if looking at his very soul, like she's searching for something in him but can't. Another second passes before she whispers, "Yes."

Izuru looks at her and almost misses the quick downturn of her lips before she faces forward again, and plays another round on her console. They don't start another conversation after that.

He watches her play quietly but for some reason, when he thinks of the admission, he feels his chest ache with a sudden and somehow familiar longing for something he doesn't understand.

.

.

.

He wonders why it's always him. Wonders why he keeps seeing her in his dreams. Wonders why it always pains him to a degree even though he can't, _doesn't_ , remember her. Izuru blames his past self for bombarding him with problems that aren't his, problems that should have been resolved a long, long time ago.

He only supposes it was fair that it had to be him. After all, he can do anything…

…But nothing like this. He can do anything, be it jump from an airplane with no parachute and miraculously live or do anything embarrassing, he can do any of that. Anything but this.

'This' refers to the pink haired girl whose name he still doesn't know and for an unknown reason is crying.

He's standing this time, in front of her. Her head is lowered and her pink hair covers her eyes but he can imagine her tears cascading down from her pink eyes, but he can see her smile _._ Oh, she's _smiling and crying_ at the same. Sadness and happiness mixed together and Izuru does not know what to do.

"I didn't want to die." She hiccups, and he all but listens.

"I just wanted everyone to be happy, wanted them to be together so that we could play again, like always." She raises her head so he can see her, and gives him a sad smile. "I wanted to see you."

Maybe he should have known, or maybe he has known from the very start but he admits. He has been denying it. He has been denying himself of the truth that maybe he was Hinata, that maybe he had harbored some feelings for his best friend. Izuru has been denying it all this time and the truth hurts to admit it.

Really, he does not know what to do at this, but she speaks up again and breaks him out of his thoughts.

"I didn't know how to feel when I saw you again, after all those months." Her hands are now at her legs, palms turned to fists. "You looked so different but I could tell it was you."

"It really hurt me when you left without any goodbye," she continues, lowering her head again. "I thought you left because you didn't want to be with me anymore."

Before the words even formed on his mind, he blurts out, "But I didn't."

The gamer stopped to gaze up at him, and Izuru finds himself unable to explain.

"I was held imprisoned against my will." He finally says but the words are not of his own, the former him taking control in a very long time. "I went away not because I wanted to but because I wanted to become someone you could be proud of."

"I just wanted to be with you forever, Nanami." He can feel the slight upturn of the corner of his lips, and relief feels him now that he finally knows who this person is and how important she is to him.

Nanami racks out another sob but it is a happy one and stands up to lock him in an embrace. Hinata, for just this once Izuru lets him take control, leans onto her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulls her towards him. She pushes her face on the crook of her neck, wraps her arms around his neck and revels in the comfort of him.

"I'm sorry." He whispers to her head, feeling the soft tresses of her pink hair and her thumping heart against his.

He presses a soft kiss to her head and proceeds to give her comforting rubs on her back as she continues with her relieved sobs that turned into joyful laughs.

Nanami pulls herself off him and genuinely smiles at him like everything is fine now and Hinata feels so complete and so right. So, he holds her face in between his hands and slowly leans toward her and–

– _he wakes up._

* * *

Izuru doesn't know why but when he pulls up a hand to his face, he finds tears falling from his eyes and a sudden deep _deep longing_ aching in his chest, and Izuru does not know why because everything _hurts_ so much.

He does not even remember what he dreamt about.


End file.
